


Highway

by Snorp_Lord



Series: OC Collection [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, Heavy Angst, I think anyway, M/M, an old one anyway, and suicide, both are really minor so, but i like how it turned out, tiny mention of smut, vent ig?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 09:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snorp_Lord/pseuds/Snorp_Lord
Summary: An old angsty character study for one of my ocs. I like how it came out, so have this while I work on other things.





	Highway

Jean stood on the side of the road at three in the morning for the third time that week, filling his lungs with acrid smoke. They weren't his cigarettes, he'd just taken them from Matt, and the mix of spices laced through each one burned horribly as he inhaled again. Fucking foreign cigarettes. Turkish, if he remembered correctly. Matt always complained if he had to smoke something else, something about the smell, so there were at least two boxes stashed in his car, full of individual cartons. He wouldn't miss one. Or two. Or five. The burn was just...so good.

It was no secret that Jean didn't mind a little pain. Just enough to be grounding. Enough to pull him back, stop him going on autopilot or forgetting to eat again, because despite the looks Matt always gave him when he said he wasn't hungry, or when he just kept eating snacks and refusing anything bigger, it was an honest mistake, for fuck's sake, and finding him on the floor that one time didn't prove anything, so he just wished the pair of them wouldn't look at him like that, wouldn't slide him food that they had already paid for because apparently he was a fucking child that needed their babysitting (if he was honest with himself, he didn't mind being looked after as much as he said he did, because sometimes he just had no idea what he was doing, and it was nice to have someone more or less tell him what to do). 

Obviously he had...other ways to ground himself, but Matt was asleep in the front seat, snoring softly, and nobody else was around right now. So, cigarettes. Matt probably knew he was taking them; those things had a very distinct smell of cinnamon and sweet herbs that wasn't easily mistaken. It was a scent he loved, even looked for when it was briefly buried under a salty tang of sweat as the older man cursed and writhed under his hands or his mouth. It was a scent that at least told him he could make a thousand terrible references, and still get a genuine giggle. It was distinctly Matthew, somehow, refined and unique and a little out of his league. Okay, a lot. But Matt didn't seem to care, and for that, Jean was infinitely grateful. Because even when he was leaning a little on Matt, watching some dumb anime (Matt hated most of them, but he watched them anyway), and he had a gentle hand combing through his blond hair, it still felt like he didn't belong there. But Matt didn't seem to care. And when the thoughts seemed to mount up, he just squeezed Jean lightly until they vanished again. 

He always seemed to know what was going on. There was always still that unspoken barrier though, a silent yet mutual agreement that things stayed as they were. Matt would continue to flirt with danger every time he left the damn house, Jean would continue to dance around the issue long after everyone else stopped caring. A fragile arrangement that they weren't going anywhere else. Refreshingly stagnant. Constant. And he didn't want it to be different, since despite the way his heart reacted to Matt's little gestures of kindness, he knew that it wasn't specifically Matthew that he loved. Maybe it was the idea of him? That was something people said. He liked the comfort and the direction and the reliability. Anyone who could give that to him became some kind of deity in his eyes.

Because somehow everything was always shifting and yet he was going fucking nowhere and it had been so long he really didn't know what else to do. Jean wasn't the one who led. He was the one who was shoved into a wall, or had people buying drinks for him, planning his whole life around that week's rota. What even came after...whatever the fuck he and Matt were? How was he supposed to work it? None of it made any sense. Maybe that was the kind of thing parents taught you, but his hadn't been too concerned about that kind of thing. One was off fucking anybody with an alluringly full wallet, the other was probably dead or on his way to it. If not, he better have a good excuse for fucking Jean over like that. 

But thinking about that never got him anywhere. Ultimately, he ended up running in circles, looking for answers without actively wanting them. A tiny part of his head refused to let go of the idea that he didn't want them for a reason. That maybe he liked playing the victim, being the most pitiful human being in any given room, drinking in the furtive glances when people thought they were being subtle. People were shitty like that. Jean was shitty like that. But that wasn't something easily solved, because people were just like that, right? Everyone was some kind of shitty, on various levels, and the people who said they weren't were the worst. 

Jean resolutely ignored the fact that he frequently said so himself. It doesn't count if you don't mean it.

Funnily enough, it was pain that briefly pulled him from his own head. The cigarette had burned down to his fingers, and he dropped it with a hiss of pain, jamming his burned fingers into his mouth before quickly spitting them back out. They tasted like smoke, all the toxic and disgusting with none of the spice. Like him. Ha ha... 

He wanted to be angry. He really did. Sometimes he wanted nothing more than to have someone to scream at, even toyed with ideas of yelling at the people just trying to help him (for what? For not giving him enough? For not putting up with enough? They were totally within their rights to dump him and save themselves so much time, so much money, so much effort), but he could never find that flame, that anger, in himself. It had never been there. God knows he'd looked- started meaningless fights and mopped up ridiculous amounts of blood trying to find a tiny spark of rage. But it just wasn't there. Never had been. 

He just felt...well, it wasn't exactly clear what he felt, but there was an awful lot of it, and it filled him so much that there was no room for anything else. Sometimes he felt like some of the derelict buildings he liked to paint on. Empty, out of place among projects and complete buildings that were all doing exactly what they were meant to, and just continuing to...exist, while nobody could bring themselves to admit that maybe things would be better if it was knocked down, since all it did was sit there and...exist while there could be interesting new things in its place, actually making something of themselves and being useful instead of just existing-

Shit, when had he started crying? Carefully, gently, Jean wiped them away with his sleeve. Pressing was tempting, but it would make his eyes red. And if someone did see him, he would honestly rather just be able to force out a laugh and say he'd poked himself in the eye. Even though just the thought of laughing made him throw up a little in his mouth. Or maybe that was the smoke.

Eventually, he had to look at himself, just turning on his phone camera rather than go back to the car, even though he knew there was a handheld mirror in there somewhere. Less walking was always good. Optimal for not being sick. God his head hurt. And he looked as wonderful as he felt. No one thing stood out, or seemed out of place, so it was almost as if the misery was shining through his face in barely visible tells that he picked out through the sickly flashlight glow. His eye always twitched a little after he cried. No helping it. Blame it on being tired. 

So

fucking

tired.

Everything tired him out now, from getting up to just being around people. Not that he'd ever been a fan of crowds. Always with eyes on him. Realistically, he was one hundred percent aware that none of the people around him actually gave a shit if he bounced his leg too fast or bit his cuffs while thinking, but it didn't stop him whipping his head around as he did it, like a criminal about to be caught in the act. Which was almost funny, considering he could get busted for far worse than being annoying. Thinking like that tired him too. He could take that logic in circles for hours, reasonable ideas quickly drowned out by wave after wave of meaningless junk. Stupid shit that only his stupid brain could throw out. Waves that pushed him very close to an edge he really hated, one that he was terrified of falling from. He'd always hated heights.

And he didn't want to fall, didn't want to be this close to the line. Jean didn't know how long it had been drawing closer, didn't know what happened if he fell, but he knew the line was getting too close. 

In truth, the line was many lines. Lines because he was unwanted and lines because he was useless and lines because he knew all of it, but never did anything and lines because he was too tall, he knew it freaked people out, and lines because he wanted everything to be over so badly but he was scared at the mere thought of it so what the fuck was he supposed to do, what did people want, why wouldn't anybody give him a straight answer, because he sure as shit couldn't figure it out!

But he wasn't there just yet. So he calmed himself down. Turned off his camera, then his flashlight. Went through everything in a slow process, like it was his life goal just to make himself function. Each step was an accomplishment. That was how he had to see it. That was how he got through. And it was how he put himself back together, piece by agonizing piece.

Until he could go back to the car. The cigarettes were empty anyway.


End file.
